The Poetry Marathon

Someone once asked me,
“What happens if home isn’t where your heart is?”

What if home is hurtful
or scary
or not very supportive?
What if you don’t have a home?

my answer is this:
the heart is not a concrete thing,
not just an organ in your chest

your heart is carried with you
to draw on when you need it,
and to share when others need you.

If home is not where your heart is,
then your heart is probably concealed somewhere

like maybe the sole of your shoe.

It’s sub-conscious,
no one deliberately thinks this way

but it is a narrative that cannot be changed
until it is changed by force

Until it is thrust in front of us
and our world come shattering around us
like a glass house wherein

someone

we don’t know who

threw a stone.

Life has a way of taking the things we care about most.
And we have a way of seeing it happen
looking the other way,
and knowing that could never be our own reality

I’m here to tell you that it can.

Every nightmare
every greatest fear
every public issue
started somewhere.

Hindsight is 20/20,
that’s what they say.
I wish I had taken the last person

who told me
“count your blessings”
“it can happen to anyone”
seriously

because when the unthinkable happened,
I wished I had heeded those warnings.

I wish I had asked myself sooner,
“What if?”

Sleep deprivation comes naturally to me;

Years of anxiety,
waking at every shuffle,
thinking so quickly—
even in the deadest rest—
that I wake myself, over and over,
have taken their toll

I’ve had to find tools to quiet
my mind and my body.

Months of experimenting,
supplements
doctor’s appointments,
and trial medications
finally – have led me to a regimen that works

One that I have skipped today,
in favor of nonstop poetry and
3 am broccoli baking

What a strange creature I am

sleepless nights
and endless stress
followed me through
college days

I never lost sight of my goals
but that doesn’t mean it was easy
and that doesn’t mean I came out unscathed.

Finally, finally,
I have my degree
I am licensed and
deemed a “professional”

I feel that I have changed since that first day of school
I know I worked my ass off,
but this is more than just hard work

this is fundamental.

This is ethereal
this is cerebral
this is me feeling like I have knowledge
and power
and value

…come to think of it,
maybe that’s the therapy

Riding horseback
racing through abandoned towns
a rat named Taro in my pocket,

how am I going to protect
this furry friend,
when a sorcerer is summoning me
intent on taking him away?

I will power through,
I will protect my friend and my magic

I approach the castle and
feel a shudder in my pocket
Taro has sensed our arrival
he burrows deeper into the fabric

the menacing Montez departs his throne,
speaks to me,
demands I hand over Taro
or face his militia alone

I choose to fight

flashes of gold paint the night sky
as mage after mage attempts to
stall my advance

I am spurred on by the warm
bundle burrowed next to my chest
I fight with all my strength

Riding home,
beaten, bruised, angry,
I feel Taro shift

I reflect on a battle hard won
and a sorcerer destroyed
never threaten an animal friend of mine

a city of mushrooms
filled to the brim with
grazing giraffes
and
death-dropping drag queens

I want to live in a fantasy

I want to be surrounded by
a fairy tale
coupled with
what our own world ought to be

loving
and caring
and inclusive
and free

I want to see women rule
in the forms of trolls,
centaurs and
Supreme Court justices

I want to feel power
over myself and my life
and I want to feel that while
dancing among fireflies

The rapid motion
lends a blur
a buzz

to the colors of a world
turning to cotton candy

this air of excitement
captures the warmth of a day well-lived

We cruise to our final destination
as the adrenaline rush starts to fade
with the heat of the hot summer day

We are ready to go home
to let the vibrations of joy subsist

but first,
we watch the gorgeous evening pass
in the mirrors surrounding us
we let the car capture the world around us
and reflect this memory back,

anchoring it in our hearts

She is
a menacing myth
made mostly of mirth and mildew:

she meanders amidst malice
marking mavens, and
making them mad with her magic

the mermaid meets men,
she mirrors their meek mentalities.
most melt, meeting her malevolence

she makes mincemeat of “modesty”

Cats
pillows
caffeine
or poetry—

After 27 years,
I still don’t know,
what is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?

The haunting voice follows me
the haunting voice follows me
as I search for that which I have lost
as I search for that which I have lost
haunting for that search, I have the voice
which follows me as I lost

Circling back through my emotions
circling back through my emotions
I am reacquainted with grief I thought buried
I am reacquainted with grief I thought buried
I am buried with my reacquainted emotions
I back through thought-circling grief

It will never fully end
it will never fully end
though I am not sure I want to forget
though I am not sure I want to forget
never forget I want to end
I am not sure it fully will though

I end the thought, as sure haunting me;
I want it buried— to that voice:
forget I am I, for emotions never follows.
Lost, I am grief with which,
circling, I will not fully search.
though, reacquainted, have my back through